Serious illnesses such as stroke, heart attack or Alzheimer's disease or serious operations such as the insertion of joint implants or the performance of an amputation cause most patients to have different deficits in physical and mental performance. These deficits are generally the result of the weakening or complete failure of a region of the brain or of a muscle. Combinations of these also frequently arise.
Thus, by way of example, a region of the brain which is responsible for controlling a muscle or a number of muscles in functional chains can be damaged. As a result, the affected muscles degenerate. Thus, they are no longer able to be used properly. Such mental or physical restrictions are referred to in the medical vernacular as capability deficits, which can be split into various areas of capability. Thus, one known classification makes the following exemplary distinctions:                motor capabilities such as strength, stamina, mobility, balance, reaction, orientation, differentiation, accommodation, speech motor functions;        intellectual/cognitive capabilities such as attention, memory, planning, comprehension of speech, communication, vision;        organic/physical capabilities such as reduction of organ performance;        social capabilities such as ability to communicate and participate;        emotional capabilities such as the capability to develop self-esteem.Some capabilities also require interplay between motor functions and cognitive functions. Thus, by way of example, the activity of climbing stairs requires strength and balance as motor capabilities and attention and spatial awareness as cognitive capabilities.        
Very often, a patient does not have a single deficit in one capability category but rather has a combination of a plurality of deficits in a more or less serious form. The aim of a therapeutic measure, which is normally performed as part of a rehabilitation process, is to restore the capabilities or to reduce the existing deficits as far as possible. At the start of the rehabilitative measure, this generally involves all the patient's capability deficits being recorded using known methods of measurement, observation and questioning, and their extent being documented. This recording process is also referred to as staging the patient. Depending on the methods of measurement used, the result of this staging process is quantitative, for example a percentage of visual capability or an indication of the degree of mobility in the upper arm, or qualitative, for example a classification of the capability restriction as severe, intermediate or slight. One example of an established method of measurement for staging numerous neurological, cognitive and psychological capabilities is the “Wiener test series” from the company Schuhfried.
The result of this initial examination is ideally a cross-discipline capability report which can be presented in the form of a capability profile. In this context, a capability profile is defined as a list of all relevant capabilities and an association between the degree of the restriction in these capabilities for this patient and the time at which the information was collected.
In addition to the term capabilities, the term skill is also used in the medical vernacular. In the context of a medical rehabilitation measure, a skill is understood to mean a complex action but one which is self-contained and can be delimited with respect to other actions. A skill requires interplay between a plurality of capabilities. In particular, the term skill in the context of rehabilitation refers to activities of daily living (ADL) which are a primary prerequisite for independent, autonomous living. Examples of such skills are eating, dressing, washing, showering, climbing stairs, etc. The performance of such skills is also recorded in standardized questionnaires and is quantified as an ADL index. Although rehabilitation directly involves the training of capabilities, the actual aim is to reacquire skills.
To improve a skill in a patient, it is normally necessary to perform a plurality of exercises relating to different capabilities relevant to the skill. The order and weighting of these exercises depends, inter alia, on the extent of the respective capability deficits in the patient. When creating a training program, the physician or therapist needs to take into account these dependencies and create a suitable training program, normally including a plurality of exercises, on the basis of his experience.